Rockford-area growers worry about this past winter’s snow

Those dependent on the growing season have a chance to put their plants in the ground and nurture others frozen throughout the chilliest days of the winter.

Yet some don’t know if they can shake paramount concerns: Was the winter too cold, too snowy, too brutal for this planting season?

Throughout the Rock River Valley region, worries proliferate.

“We’re going to be lucky this year if we get anything planted by the 15th of April,” Wendell Devries, a Stephenson County farmer, said recently. “This is usually the time of year where we’re getting the ground ready for planting — starting to apply fertilizer and chemicals.

“It’s going to be a long time before any of that’s done this year because the ground’s still frozen.”

Devries grows plants and harvests oats, alfalfa, corn and soybeans. His farm is about 1,000 acres and produces an average of 180 bushels of corn to the acre.

He is fearful for the oat production of his farm this year. Oats thrive when they’re planted early in the season.

Devries’ crop yield could be affected by up to 20 percent due to the extreme winter.

Farmers like to get their footing and get crops planted as soon as the weather cooperates in case the summer turns out to be hot and dry.

“It puts us in more of a danger that we won’t get as good of yields,” Devries said. “But farmers have to wait until the weather is ready to go. That’s just part of it. We wait until the ground is ready, and we make the best of what we have. We can’t control the weather.”

The winter kept piling on the Midwest this past year. According to the National Weather Service, Rockford was dealing with its seventh snowiest winter as of March 20. Exactly 56.4 inches of snow had fallen.

Tony and Liz Fiorenza, owners of the Wind Ridge Herb Farm in Caledonia, aren’t used to waiting so long to see their perennials. Snow has prevented the sun from warming the ground. Snow also piled to the tops of their hoop houses, preventing entry and then flooding some interiors.

“It’s kind of been a challenge. I’ll tell you that, and it hasn’t even rained yet,” Liz Fiorenza said.

One of the few positives, she said, was an abundance of sunny days. She didn’t have to rely so much on artificial lighting, and her hoop houses stayed warm so that she had better control of her heating bill.

“I’m getting plenty of Vitamin D this year,” Fiorenza joked.

The University of Illinois Extension office has designated Candice Miller as the horticulture educator of Winnebago, Boone, Ogle, DeKalb, Stephenson, and Jo Daviess counties.

Midwestern growers always have the weather to worry about, and she makes sure to mention the positive and negative consequences of this past winter.

There’s still time, though, to get cold season crops in the ground. Lettuce, onions and peas … they can tolerate frost and cold. Late March to early April is a totally appropriate planting time, Miller said.

”As long as the snow is melted away and as long as they can get out there and work up their soil, (those crops) can tolerate the cool air and the cool temperatures,” she said.

Pearl City farmer Ryan Keltner deals with corn and soy beans. The prime planting time for corn is still a month away, so he isn’t concerned yet about the weather affecting his yields.

“We’re not late yet,” he said. “We just need to take advantage of the time and wait for the weather to cooperate.”

Over the next month, Keltner will check, test and service the field machinery and planters, which will seed his 2,900-acre farm.

The only issues the winter caused Keltner were with his livestock. The extreme cold warranted a lot of work to keep the animals warm and dry and to keep their water from freezing.